GAME REPORT

Italy Slip Past Russia, Into Quarter-Finals

Riccardo Truccolo poured in 17 points to lead Italy into the Quarter-Finals of the U20 European Championship with a 67-59 victory over Russia.

Italy captured their first win of the Qualifying Round Group E but it was enough to reach the final eight with a 1-4 record as Stefano Sacripanti's team needed to win by at least six points to advance. Tommaso Raspino added 11 points and Matteo Da Ros chipped in 10 points for the winners.

"The key today was defense. We needed to play defense and we did that," said Truccolo, who buried four big three-pointers in the game.

"My shot was not falling the past couple days but it was there today. And this is the right way to go to the quarter-finals."

Alexander Vasin's Russians pulled ahead early 11-4 but the Italians responded with an 11-0 run and led 19-14 after one quarter.

Russian knotted the game at 25-25 only to watch Niccolo Martinoni and Truccolo combine for three three-pointers to go up 34-29 at the break.

Already leading 43-36, Truccolo converted a rare four-point play and then buried two more triples to push the margin to 55-40, which the Russians trimmed to 55-42 after three periods.

Italy were still ahead 67-56 when Dmitriy Khvostov drained a long ball to trim the gap to eight points - 67-59. But both teams failed to score on their final two possessions and Italy advanced to the quarters.